Search This Blog

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-C. S. Lewis

Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Posts

On Monday, my eldest son slapped me in the face. He's six years old. I don't mean he literally slapped me but rather, metaphorically. On Monday, he spoke his first word. And his second, third and so on up to his ninth. We went from zero words to nine. Anyone reading this is likely wondering why a six year old is only now speaking his first words. Simple, he's autistic. He has never spoken but always vocalized. He has a series of sounds and noises he makes that indicate desires or emotions. When he's upset he makes one noise, fear has another (he hates the vacuum) and happiness has many.

He takes the bus to school and it was bloody hot this week so my wife picked him up from school. She walked in the classroom and the teacher said, "You'll never guess what your son did." Uh oh, that's usually not a good opener. "He's using words." He saw my wife and walked over and said, "Hi." She called me and told me at work bu…

Move over Ann Coulter here comes Tammy Bruce: Hezbollah Among Us: "This is one example where everyone at this rally carrying signs calling for Israel's destruction and are sympathetic to Hezbollah should be considered supporters of the enemy, arrested and interrogated. And then, of course, either jailed or deported. And if they have somehow managed to become citizens of the United States, they should be stripped of that honor and then deported back to the pit from whence they came."

And this from a Democrat! She must be a Rovian plant! Under the control of zionist neocon cabal! Actually, her Democrat credentials were confiscated years ago when she wrote her autobiography and condemned the NOW gang.

Fishers of Men. It's a recruitment video for Catholic priests. Quite remarkable. It's far more artistic and powerful than I expected. It's very frank and direct. To me, there is a bit of an undercurrent of imploring. As if they're acknowledging the desparate need for an increase in priests. I was also struck by the unnamed priest who says he trembles when he sanctifies the eurcharist because he feels unworthy. To me, that's the mark of a good priest. He has the one quality that is often lacking in older clergy, humility.

It's 18 minutes long and IMNHO, worth your time.

The most striking thing about this is that it represents a quantum leap forward in the way the Church uses media. I've sat through countless presentations, films and such that came from official sources that were clunky, tin-eared and devoid of temporal connections. Today, people need to know that serving the Church also means serving your fellow man and making an impact on the wor…

FOXNews.com - Official: Montana Senator Blasts Firefighters - U.S. Senate: "'The toughest part of the conversation was the point where the senator was critical of a firefighter sitting across from us in the gate area,' Rosenthal wrote. 'I offered to the senator that our firefighters make around $8 to $12 an hour and time-and-a-half for overtime. He seemed a bit surprised that it wasn't higher.'"

So, this Senator browbeats guys who risked their lives to fight a fire while he did what exactly? Typical Washington mentality. The good Senator is lucky he wasn't horsewhipped.

Over the two-year period, spending on noncompetitive contracts jumped from $655 million to $5.5 billion, the report concluded.

Questionable contracts highlighted in the report included:

—$1.2 billion to install and maintain luggage screening equipment at commercial airports that had a high false alarm rate.

—$915 million on nearly 26,000 mobile homes and trailers to house hurricane victims and relief workers — none of which could be sent to disaster zones in Louisiana and Mississippi because of prohibitions on their use in flood plains.

-$19 million for Transportation Security Administration office space for 140 employees that includes 12 conference rooms, seven kitchens, a fitness center, and $500,000 worth of artwork and decorative items.

[By my calculations, that's $135714.29 per person. Why not just buy them each a friggin house!]

Vintage Drug Ads. I wonder if we'll look back in 20 years at the ads we had for Ritalin and all those other sundried drugs that have hideous side effects. Incidentally, I was zoning out during a radio commercial yesterday and my jaw dropped when I heard the one side effect was lymphoma! What the hell sort of pill gives you blood cancer? Could that risk be worth whatever symptoms it's designed to aleviate?

Is this what it's come to? I've seen this type of response before. Many cops don't take kindly to being filmed or photographed while working. I don't blame them, who wants to be scrutinzed while working? Not me. However, they don't have a choice. They are in a different category. They have the power of the state and the force of arms at their disposal. If he had merely admonished the guy to go back inside or stay out of the way, fine. To arrest him for photographing is beyond the pale. I hope they pound on that officer as an example to his peers.

Just a Bad Idea says Ozymandias. I'm inclined to agree. Signing statements are fine so long as they are not intended to be binding. They can indicate why the President signed them and what the Executive branch believes to be the intent and scope of the law.

As noted, the President has the option of signing it or vetoing it. This middling crap of signing a bill and then declaring the bill to be other than what it is or intended to be is extra constitutional.

I'm all in favor of Executive checks on the Legislature but this is not the way to do it.

I've been toying w/ Google Earth of late and it's simply amazing. This link is remarkable. The stuff people are able to find is jaw dropping. Commenters suggest the "sandbox" is designed for pilots to navigate more easily. Sounds about right to me. If I had to guess, they're using the "sandbox" as a model for a computer to map for a flight trainer. That gives them the ability to train without tipping their hand.

Other items found with Google Earth: A sunken plane, a lost ladder, soviet submarine bases, hidden North Korean airfields and more. (I was going to post the link but I've since lost them. I'll update this item if I can find them.)

Really, this woman never, ever should have had kids. Everyone would be much better off. She wouldn't be burdened by the pain and torment of responsibility and the kids wouldn't need the countless hours of therapy they'll inevitably get.

Other gems from the article include:

They don't show the husband legging it to the pub so he doesn't have to change a nappy, either.

Your husband is an ass, this can't be a surprise by the time you're having kids. You mean a shallow, self-centered woman married a shallow, self-centered man? What are the odds?

(but not dads, of course, who have a ready-made excuse for being out of the house all day because they 'have to go to work').

Damn that husband and his pesky mortgage. Darling Dear, how do you suppose you can afford all those shopping trips you go on instead of rais…

.: 7M3 :. American Standard: "I'd like to believe we could reconcile the pastresurrect those bridges with an ancient glancebut my old stone face can't seem to bring her downshe remembers bridges, burns them to the ground"

House of Eratosthenes has a post entitled Memo For File XVII which covers the topic of language and its use in news stories. Mark cites the old saw that one should write for a sixth grade level. I'm old enough that I was given the same advice. Sadly today's sixth graders would likely be unable to read something written to a sixth grade level from 1980something when I was in sixth grade [/old coot rant].

This advice is fine if one is writing for, say a sixth grade newspaper. Do you suppose the writers at The Economist or Forbes are given similar instructions?

It wasn't until tenth grade that I had a writing teacher that knew something about writing. I don't know if he was a good writer. I don't remember reading anything he wrote but he was a merciless editor. His one nugget of advice was to "kill your puppies" when writing. That is, if you are overly enamored of a particular turn of a phrase, it's probably overdone. I have vivid memories of t…

A difficult lesson. One that children and nations must learn. One to keep in mind when speaking of "proportionate responnses". I didn't hear too many voices in that chorus on 9/12/01. Those that were in favor of such a response were wise enough to keep their heads down.

That Israel hasn't learned this lesson is a testament to the void left by Sharon and remains unfilled by Olmert. Iran and the Arab world have learned that they can use non-state actors as a proxy against their enemies. They need only keep themselves as embedded with the civilians to ensure international condemnation and media victories if there are reprisals.

That's right, a Hummer is more eco-friendly in its lifetime than a Prius. This graph shows the energy cost per mile. My energy cost per mile is one third of a Prius. Take that you tree huggers! I anxiously await all the greenies who are going to now trade in their Prius' for Hummers.

Hmm...a derisive article about Instapundit. (I initially wrote scathing but it really lacks the passion that would make it scathing).

Rosen's prime mistake is conflating Instapundit with the blogosphere. The blogosphere is a very big place with myriad variations of bloggers. Reynolds is a linker not a thinker. He writes in brief. For every Instapundit, there is a Stephen Den Beste at the other end of the spectrum. She misses the forest for the trees.

Some of her criticisms of Reynolds are valid but they start and end with him. You can no more indict the whole of the blogosphere with critiques of Reynolds than you can indict all of the World Cup based on Zidane's headbutt.

I believe Rosen, like many media professionals, resents Instapundit's popularity and influence. He's a part timer and a hack at that and yet he gets more pageviews than Rosen could ever hope for and she's PROFESSIONAL! There is no jus…